South Bucks MP calls for independent review on loan charges

As self-employed workers across the country continue to be affected by loan charges, the MP for Chesham and Amersham, Sarah Green, is calling on an independent review into the scheme.

The schemes were advertised to freelance and self-employed workers as a means to be paid for their salary by a third party in loans form, either in part or in full.

However the government introduced, in the 2016 Budget, an anti-avoidance measure in an effort to clamp down on tax loss to these remuneration schemes.

"The reason this is so unfair is that this is a change in the law that has been applied retrospectively, so all of those people who signed up to this scheme were doing it in good faith..."

Although the schemes were, at the time, perfectly legal, over 50,000 workers across the country have been impacted by forced repayments of large sums of money to HMRC.

Ms Green said: "The reason this is so unfair is that this is a change in the law that has been applied retrospectively, so all of those people who signed up to this scheme were doing it in good faith, they were doing it because they were given advice to do it, and they were legal at the time."

"It's so egregious; it's only being applied to those who entered the schemes, not to the people who sold them in the first place."

"I spoke to one person who told me that because they were so worried about how they were going to pay for everything, they terminated a pregnancy, a much-wanted pregnancy..."

Ms Green is among many MPs to have called on the Government to conduct a full independent review into the loan scheme to support the many lives affected by the change in law.

She said: "We have five 'live cases', so these are people who have come to us for support, which suggests to me that there are more than five people locally, but they're just suffering in silence."

"These are individuals who have been asked to pay huge sums of money."

"I spoke to one person who told me that because they were so worried about how they were going to pay for everything, they terminated a pregnancy, a much-wanted pregnancy, because they were just terrified for the future."

“Our message to anyone who is worried about paying what they owe is: please contact us as soon as possible to talk about your options.”

An HMRC spokesperson said: “We never forget that there’s a human story behind every unpaid tax bill and we take the wellbeing of all taxpayers very seriously."

“We recognise that dealing with large tax liabilities can lead to pressure on individuals and we are committed to identifying and supporting customers who need extra help with their tax liabilities, and we have made significant improvements to this service over the last few years.”

“Our message to anyone who is worried about paying what they owe is: please contact us as soon as possible to talk about your options.”